Path of Ashes
by erinthesails
Summary: Many, many years have passed since the night Hanna Cross and friends crashed into Conrad Achenleck's life, and now, a young vampire hunter lies in wait for her prey.


A door was ajar.

The young hunter, crouching in its shadow, eyed it suspiciously. In her line of work, doors were never left open. Doors were usually double bolted and woven through with enough human repelling magic to discourage all but the most seasoned veterans of the supernatural. By now, of course, such magical barriers posed little more of a problem to her than clearing a doorway of a particularly stubborn spider web, but the fact that the vampire on the other side hadn't bothered with even the most rudimentary magical protections anywhere other than his front door made her hesitate. She had been hunting vampires for a very long time now, and in all those years she had known some to be cocky to a fault, others simply ignorant of their own enemies and weaknesses, but she had never known one to be stupid.

Her eyes narrowed.

Glancing down the carpeted hall of the tacky, 21st century style apartment that this particular vampire had made its den, she dropped her pack silently to the floor and knelt quickly beside it. Carefully, quietly as she could manage, she tugged open the zipper and slipped a hand into the canvas, fingers probing blindly until they found the solid, heavy prongs of an iron cross. Any spell meant to damage intruding humans should have some visible effect on religious artifacts as well. Wrapping leather gloved fingers tightly around the cool metal, she pushed herself up from the floor, careful to keep out of range of the slice of dim, silvery light filtering out of the room that held her sleeping prey. She squared her shoulders, held her breath, and tentatively passed the cross over the inch of slightly darker carpet where the hall gave way to the bedroom.

Nothing. She tried it again, flicking her wrist into the exposed sliver of the room and back out again.

No telltale tingle of magical repulsion met her fingers, nor any sparks of pain that might indicate spells of a slightly more dangerous nature. Her eyebrows twisted slightly and she scratched a spot on her chin. Should she chance using a protective rune? On one hand, her rune of choice was fairly effective at blocking most anti-human magic, which, though unlikely, could definitely still be a factor in this situation, perhaps all the more dangerous for its undetectabilty. However, it also came with the risky side effect of activating any anti-magic spells that might be present, which couldn't usually be detected by means as simple as just waving a cross around, and would likely yield more damaging effects than your average human repellant spell…

"Are you going to sit outside that door all day or are you going to come in?"

The hunter stiffened, her grip on the little cross tightening as her other hand flew compulsively to the shotgun dangling at her hip.

"I feel as though I should say 'I don't bite' or something equally irreverent and sure to annoy you, but I feel as though that might be a bit grim, considering the circumstances."

She gritted her teeth at the dry humour in his voice. A cocky one huh? Looked like tonight was going to be _much_ more fun than she had expected.

Slipping her trusty shotgun from its holster and tucking the cross securely into her belt, she straightened, gripping the weapon tighter, and assessed the situation. So not only was the vampire awake, but it had known she was coming. Well damn, there went her upper hand. It was a shame, but she was prepared for such eventualities. She'd come out on top in more lopsided fights in the past. The opportunity for runes had come and gone, the only thing for it now was to face her prey. Hoisting the gun up to rest securely against her shoulder, she drove forward, pushing the door open with the barrel of the gun.

For some reason that she couldn't quite identify, a jolt of uneasy surprise twinged in her stomach at the sight that met her. Vampires tended to be not only creatures of habit, but of intense drama and traditionalism as well. Most clung to the various motifs and styles that had characterized the era in which they had been alive, amplified the remembered fashions of the present, creating near theatrical parodies of the lives they remembered, weaving in towering atriums and looming armchairs, opulent chandeliers and lush wood paneling that any given human from the time period would have neither been able to afford, nor felt any desire to acquire. She had on multiple occasions met (and subsequently exterminated) vampires who actually insisted on sleeping in coffins. Fortunately for her, this just made them easier prey.

Though this particular vampire was certainly no exception when it came to clinging rather pathetically to the past (she noted as she eyed the argyle sweater vest paired with a crisp, button up shirt, so dated she doubted very much that even her grandfather would have owned anything like it), he seemed to lack the sense of drama that most vampires were so possessed with. The room was modular, the minimalist furniture designs and muted color palette a clear homage to the early 2000s, if her anthropology and art history classes were anything to judge by. But that was…just about it. No decadent fireplace or theatrical, high backed armchair gave away the marked arrogance she had come to associate with these creatures, especially ones as old as this. Instead she was met with tousled, dark hair, set on squared shoulders, hunched, she could tell, more out of habit than age. She noted with dull irritation that the prey she had stalked for so long had not yet even bothered to turn and face its death.

"Ah, there you are," the vampire said, glancing back at her suddenly, as if overhearing her thoughts. "So nice of you to join me."

The room was dimly lit, but the light from the bedside lamp was enough to make the old fashioned, rectangular glasses perched on the vampire's rather crooked looking nose flash as he finally turned to face her.

"I was wondering when you'd finally catch up with me," he said, crossing his arms pensively, seemingly unperturbed by the shotgun barrel still held steady, aiming for a spot right between his eyes. "I'll be honest, pretending not to notice you following me for days on end was starting to get quite difficult. I might've accidentally given myself away if you'd waited much longer."

She said nothing, but drew the gun in a little tighter to her shoulder. A good rule of thumb when dealing with vampires was to avoid engaging them if at all possible. Vampires were wily creatures; they could talk you in circles in a minute if you let them, and before you know it, your intestines would be in their teeth. She squared her shoulders and stood her ground, silently willing him to move just a little to the right, away from the large, boarded up window he had apparently been contemplating prior to her arrival. Though blowing out the vampire's window in the middle of the afternoon would certainly get her job done quicker than a long, drawn out battle to his death, it would also almost certainly attract unwanted attention from law enforcement officials, who could easily throw a "murder charge" sized wrench into her business. If all went according to plan, she would be in and out before anyone even realized she was here, and no one would even notice that anything was amiss with the quiet young gentleman in apartment 31W until the landlord came knocking for rent weeks from now. Not that there would be anything left for them to find. No crime scene, no body, no proof of what he had been; just an empty apartment and maybe some ashes on his bedroom floor. The neighbors could fill in the blanks on their own if they were so inclined. They would imagine up some very comforting story, she was sure, about how his mother overseas must have taken ill, or how his long lost sister had called to be picked up and taken home, leaving no time for packing or goodbyes. Not that it mattered, she thought as her fingers tightened around the trigger, watching the creature consider her silently for a moment. This thing didn't even deserve their concern.

"Aren't you going to ask me how I noticed you?" he asked, eyebrow arched challengingly. "From what I've seen, you strike me as quite the overachiever. Certainly one of the most methodical hunters I've encountered, and believe me, that is saying something."

Silence resonated between them as he took a ponderous step towards her.

"Still not talking? Oh, I get it. You're one of those 'righteous vengeance' hunters aren't you? Think every last one of us is scum and you're doing the world a favor by wiping us out, right?"

Her blood burned, vision clouding with fury.

_He knows nothing he knows nothing he knows nothing don't engage him he knows nothing…_

She breathed deeply, flexing her fingers, calming herself until the urge to lunge forward, jab her shotgun into the bridge of those ridiculous glasses and blow him away right then and there ebbed.

_Patience, patience. Wait for an opening. Don't let him throw you off your guard._

"I'll be honest, for the most part you're probably right," the vampire persisted coolly. "Most of the others I've met have been…well, in a word, awful. I'm not going to waste your time insisting I'm not like them though. Something tells me you wouldn't believe me regardless."

She focused on her breathing, trying to simultaneously tune out his words and focus with precision on every tiny movement of his body.

_Just another inch or two to the right, come on. Just one distracted glance over the shoulder and you're _mine.

He continued after a moment, seemingly unperturbed by her silence.

"So what got you into vampire hunting anyway? It's been a while since I was at school, but as far as I'm aware, there's not exactly a booth for it at career day."

The silence stretched once more, and he paused, shifted his weight slightly from one foot to the other, reached up to rub at his eyes. Her heart leapt. There it was. Her opening. Her opening and his downfall.

Not wasting a moment, she gripped the forearm tight, cocked the gun, and squeezed the trigger, waiting for the silver bullet to split the air, singing through the vampire's brain and splattering stolen blood over the clean, yellow walls.

But the earsplitting crack of shotgun fire never came. She stumbled back, wide eyed, having braced herself for a nonexistent recoil, The vampire peered at her through his pale fingers, eyebrow arching toward his hairline.

Growling, she regained her footing and tried again, jerking the forearm back and pulling the trigger. Still nothing.

"Ah, yes, sorry I forgot to mention that to you," the vampire said, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and straightening his sweater vest. "You are currently standing inside a sort of magic containment circle…thing. Once it's activated, nothing gets out until it's deactivated again."

She hissed. An obvious lie. Anti-human magic was designed to keep humans out, not keep them in. This was some kind of mechanical blocking spell, she was certain. Yet another unfortunate loss of advantage, but not a problem. Her hands could be every bit as deadly as her gun when she wanted them to be.

"You're a bad liar and a bloodsucking parasite," she growled, abandoning her vow to silence and dropping her shotgun unceremoniously to the ground. "And I have been waiting far too long to do this."

She flew forward, fingers seeking out the cross held tight at her hip, prepared to drive the little iron spike straight into the vampire's temple. But before she had moved even two feet in his direction, she felt herself slam into something _hard_, legs shooting out from under her as she toppled back to the ground.

"What the…"

She hurled a clenched fist in the vampire's direction with all of her might, only to have it collide with an invisible, but bone shatteringly tangible surface somewhere in the air in front of her.

"Oh come on, what could I _possibly_ have to gain from lying about this?" the vampire said, sounding slightly impatient. He strode forward, peering down at her with his arms crossed behind his back, as if examining a particularly unusual specimen in an aquarium tank.

"But I…I checked!" she burst out, scrambling to her feet. _No no no, this couldn't be happening… _ "I made sure there were no traps before I even…fuck!"

Dimly she felt her arm drop to her side, cross slipping between her fingers and tumbling with a dull thud to the carpeted floor. She slammed a fist into her forehead, knuckles digging into her skin as she ground her teeth against the enraged scream building in her throat.

_Fuck, how could I have messed up so badly? What a stupid way to die…_

"Um," a slightly nervous voice cut in from somewhere beyond her fingers.

Why was he even bothering to talk to her? He could just reach out and snap her neck right now and she wouldn't even be able to do anything about it. What was the point of toying with her further?

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm not going to kill you. I'll let you go if you give me a few minutes to explain, okay? I promise."

She wrenched her eyes back up to meet his. A promise? A _promise_? She had expected lies and manipulation, but…

"As I'm sure you know," he said, apparently encouraged by her incredulous look. "Vampires can lie, cheat, and steal to our figurative hearts' content, but when it comes to promises, our word is quite literally our bond."

She eyed him suspiciously. It all seemed legitimate enough. But still none of this made any sense. There had to be some kind of catch, some kind of loophole that would allow him to crush her trachea or rip out her heart when he got bored of her. She took a deep breath and allowed her hand to drop from her face, straightening up and collecting herself a little but more.

"What's your angle?" she spat, fists forming at her sides.

He sighed and rubbed his temple. The lamplight was at such an angle now that every facial feature cast dark shadows over his face, accentuating the tired circles under his eyes and the grim line of his mouth, his face drained of the youthful glow that all reasonably well-fed vampires enjoyed.

"Difficult as it might be for you to believe, I don't actually have an angle."

She watched as he turned his back on her and wandered over to a chair situated against the opposite wall.

"First of all, why don't we try to make this a little more friendly? What's your name?" he asked, settling stiffly into the cushions.

Her lips remained resolutely shut. The vampire sighed again and chewed his lip.

"Would it make you feel better if I went first?"

Another long silence left him pursing his lips and plowing on without her.

"Okay, well my name is Conrad. Conrad Achenleck. And you are?"

Her brow was furrowed as she continued to contemplate him silently for a moment, trying to weigh her advantages and disadvantages. As far as she could tell, at the moment, her advantages numbered approximately zero, while her disadvantages continued to pile higher by the second. If she was being honest with herself, at this point she had little left to lose. And he _had _promised not to hurt her, though she was as of yet uncertain how or why he would come through on his end of the bargain. Telling him her name really couldn't hurt at this point. Besides, there was no real dignity, she felt, in silence compelled by fear.

"Savita," she finally answered grudgingly. "My name is Savita."

"No last name?"

"Not that you need to know about," she replied curtly.

"Fair enough," the vampire–Conrad–said, leaning back with a vague, barely there smile and steepling his fingers. "Well it's nice to meet you Savita. It's a shame our first meeting couldn't have been on more, er, friendly terms. I feel as though we could have been friends, had the circumstances of our lives–or unlives, in my case, I suppose–been different."

"Don't you talk to me like you know something about me," she hissed back, temper once again reaching its boiling point before she had even realized what she was doing. "You don't know _anything _about me, you leech."

"Well, once again, fair enough…"

The vampire once again seemed at a loss as she glared at him, waiting for him to make his next move.

"How about this, then," he supplied, leaning forward suddenly. "For every thing you share about your life, I share something about mine. It's a trade off that way; no one's at a disadvantage."

She clenched her jaw, squeezed her knuckles until they popped. She didn't want to know about him. Didn't care for any useless trivia he might offer about his worthless excuse of an existence. Any stories he told her, no matter innocuous, no matter how seemingly insignificant the events, would all have occurred at the cost of human life, at the cost of draining others of their vitality to preserve his own. He wasn't a person. He was a parasite.

However, she thought as he continued to watch her expectantly, at this point she could see no other means of moving this little meeting along to its conclusion, whatever that conclusion might be. And she supposed that if she was to be forced to give him something, she might as well take something from him in return. He may have robbed her of all of her advantages, but she could always hope that he might let something a little too personal slip. Depending on the target, emotional leverage could sometimes be more useful than any rune encrusted bullet. From a survival standpoint, perhaps the greatest downfall of vampirism was that vampires could still feel.

"Will talking get me out of here any faster?"

A tired sort of smile tugged at the vampire's lips, as if he hadn't done it in quite some time and had almost forgotten how to even fake one.

"Yes, I should think so."

Her eyes narrowed. Not a particularly reassuring response, but it was the best she was likely to get, unfortunately. She exhaled sharply, swallowed, and crossed her arms.

"What do you want to know?"

"Well uh, why don't we start again with my initial question?"

"I already told you my name."

"Before that. The one about how you got into the…"

He hooked his fingers into double quotation marks in midair.

"'business', so to speak."

She sucked in her cheeks. Not exactly a story she was overjoyed to be telling a stranger, even a stranger she fully intended to kill in the near future.

Before she gave herself the opportunity to over think the situation, she opened her mouth and allowed the story to spill out.

"When I was 7 years old," she began, filling every word with as much venom as she could muster. "My parents were killed by vampires."

She paused, allowing silence to settle once more into the far corners of the room as she gauged her rival's reaction. He did not move from his previous position gazing intently up at her from his chair across the room; however, she noted with a twinge of something like satisfaction, that his eyes had widened noticeably in the dark. Just as the uncomfortable silence had stretched almost to a breaking point, she plowed on.

"A husband and wife vampire team, apparently. I didn't know at the time, but I found out eventually. All I knew then was that my parents were on vacation and then, for some reason, they just didn't come home. Their bodies were found three days later in a ditch by the side of the road."

The vampire was still silent, face impassive but for the wide red eyes glinting from behind those stupid, out of style glasses.

"Once I got a little older, I got a little more skeptical about the bullshit explanation the cops gave about bleeding out due to the steepness of the hill, and all of their blood evaporating from the desert sand without a trace. Did some research, eventually figured out that humans are not so alone on this earth as we seem to believe, and here I am."

"Wait, so how did you find all of this out?" the vampire cut in, leaning forward suddenly, brow furrowed. "The existence of vampires isn't really information that can be found at the library or–"

"I thought we agreed this would be an equal exchange system," she cut in curtly. "It's my turn."

"Mm. Right you are," he said, squinting at her but resuming his previous position. "What would _you _like to know?"

"How old are you?"

"Well," he said, straightening up. "Twenty seven, _physically_. But to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how long it's been since I was, ah, you know, turned."

"You can't possibly just _not be sure_," she shot back.

"A few decades ago I just sort of stopped keeping track," he replied grimly. "Never quite got back into the habit. If I were to guess, however, my guess would be between 100 and 200 years. Most likely closer to the latter than the former."

So not exactly the oldest vampire she'd come across. But, she noted, as he blinked and reclaimed his stiff, listless posture, certainly the most tired. The dullness of his eyes, the monotone of his voice; everything about him indicated exhaustion in a way that she felt certain years of sleep could not even cure. She felt a twinge of something…something almost like _pity_ deep in her stomach. She looked at him, this blinking, sighing, nervous predator, with a disinterested sort of sympathy. The way one might regard a breathing but mortally wounded animal by the side of the road. But no, that was not quite accurate. She regarded him the way one might regard a mortally wounded mountain lion they have stumbled across whilst alone in the middle of the woods. Pity was there, certainly, but so too was vigilance and distrust. So long as she did not allow her pity to overtake her good judgment, she would be safe.

"My turn, I believe," the vampire cut in on her internal monologue.

She nodded.

"How did you learn all of this? About your parents, about, uh, vampires. I understand the reasoning, but I imagine the actual logistics were slightly trickier to work out."

"A healthy sense of skepticism paired with some lucky family connections," she replied dryly. "My aunt was always a bit on the eccentric side, and fortunately she had some even more eccentric friends. The answers they gave me seemed more plausible than the pseudo-scientific explaining away the authorities always tried to give me, and with a little investigation, it turned out they were right."

The vampire looked unsatisfied with her answer, but, strangely, unwilling to pry. He merely nodded, eyebrows curving almost imperceptibly together as he waited for her question.

"How did you manage this spell?" she asked, finally voicing the question that had gotten her into this mess in the first place. "Or more like, what's its actual function? Why just trap people? Seems like more trouble than it's worth, especially for someone like you."

He did not need to ask to know what she meant by 'someone like you', and apparently elected to ignore it altogether in favor of addressing the initial question.

"Hah, well to be honest I never really got the hang of magic myself," he said, smiling wanly. "Most all the spells here are the result of 'stick-and-go' runes that came into my possession nearer to the beginning of my life than to today."

"There was this kid I knew a long time ago," he continued, sounding wearier by the minute. "He worried, perhaps rightly so, about me not being able to fend for myself, so he made me a bunch of runes right before he…"

The vampire swallowed and turned away from her, lamplight casting charcoal shadows over his pale cheek.

"Anyway," he said after a moment, body swelling suddenly with unprocessed oxygen. "He was a big believer in talking things out. Wanted to make my final line of defense a 'civil conversation' with my would-be assailant."

The vampire chuckled a little to himself, eyes distant and clouded.

"A slightly less optimistic mutual friend gently convinced him to add the ability to eliminate targets should I eventually decide that my safety was still in jeopardy at the end of our little chat. Over the years I got in the habit of sticking them over the bedroom doors of every place I lived at, just in case. I think I still have a few left, come to think of it."

Following the vampire's eyes as they flicked up to a point on the wall behind her, she swiveled to peer up at the doorframe. Sure enough, a faded, yellowing piece of blue lined paper lay firmly adhered to the paint.

"Those things are much harder to get off than one might imagine," he said wistfully somewhere behind her. "As far as I can tell, the only way to permanently deactivate them is to move out of the place entirely."

"So this kid," she interrupted. "He wasn't like you?"

A note of disbelief crept into her voice.

"He was human? You were friends with a human?"

"I see you have once again forgotten our rule of mutual exchange," he said, eyebrow tipping upward. "But no, yes, and yes. Other vampires and I have never quite gotten on, to be perfectly frank."

She opened her mouth to ask him another question, but he silenced her with a finger to his lips.

"How old were you when you started hunting?" he continued.

"Sixteen," she said, a little bitterly at having been cut off. "I probably would have started earlier if acquiring lethal weaponry wasn't such a chore any younger than that. Why are you keeping me here?"

The vampire laughed nervously to himself, hollow and humourless.

"Is 'decades of profound boredom and loneliness' an appropriate answer?" he said, not really asking so much as carrying out some obligatory inside joke with himself.

"I thought the answer should by now be obvious," he continued matter-of-factly after a moment. "I want you to kill me."

His answer hardly had time to ring in her confused, awestruck ears before he assaulted her with yet another question, desperate, for some reason, to maintain this meaningless charade.

"That vampire couple you mentioned earlier," he continued as she gaped wordlessly at him. "You said they 'target_ed_' human couples. Past tense. What happened to them?"

"Are you serious?" she choked out once she had collected her wits once more. "You're just going to toss that casually into the conversation and still expect me to keep playing this little game?"

"Answer the question," he said simply, calmly, eyes flashing behind his dark rimmed glasses. But, she couldn't help noticing, his words this time held a definite touch of heat behind them. A sharp sort of dangerousness that had previously been absent from his demeanor jutted out like glass through his cool cordiality, startling her into compliance.

"I found them and killed them, what the fuck do you think," she snarled, fingers curling once more into fists. "But what…why…"

Questions ran like ink through her head. Why did he wait until now to confront her? Why didn't he let some other hunter take care of the dirty work years ago if he was so eager to die? Why _her_? Why _now_?

The question that bubbled first to her lips was "Why didn't you just kill yourself?"

The vampire sighed exasperatedly and squeezed the bridge of his nose. What other outcome had he been expecting? True, mere minutes of conversation had done nothing to change her intentions towards him, she was just as happy as ever before at the prospect of causing him pain, but now the circumstances were different. The wounded lion was handing her a crossbow, and she was unsure exactly what to make of it.

"Well if you must know," he said finally, with a resigned sort of slump of his shoulders. "I did try. Believe me I tried."

He paused then, allowing the silence to ring out through the room, much as she herself had near the beginning of their stationary little game of cat and mouse, of underhanded upper handing. She realized that perhaps he had all along been more intuitive to her intentions than she had given him credit for.

"But," he continued with a sudden, wry chuckle. "In my younger years I was not quite so informed on the nature of my, uh, _condition_, as I am now."

He adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat.

"I made a promise, years ago. A stupid promise to someone I once knew. He was dying, see, and he made me promise–to paraphrase him–'not to do anything stupid, like getting myself killed'. And I, being young and naïve and in…"

He swallowed and gritted his teeth.

"…and _stupid_, agreed."

A bark of laughter and suddenly he was standing, pacing jerkily over the dull carpet. She took an involuntary step backwards as that heat, that hidden spark of long suppressed, world-weary rage leapt once more into his voice.

"As if he'd really cared about my wellbeing. Hah!" he spat bitterly. "Well, as you might imagine, I didn't discover until quite some time later that as a vampire, verbal contracts are much more physically binding than I had at first realized. Which, of course, doesn't mean that I can't die, just that I can't have any active role in bringing about my own demise. No stake through the heart, no waiting out on the rooftop until the sun rises, no hunting down hunters and simply lying down at their feet…"

He stopped pacing just as suddenly as he had started and snapped his gaze back up to hers.

"And is it so bad," he asked, voice unexpectedly soft, almost imploring. She twitched at the sudden change in his demeanor. The fire in him was gone again. He was cinders, he was dust. He was the dying lion, its last ounce of strength drained by the simple act of turning to face its final executioner. "Is it so bad to want to die on my own terms? To at least know that it was coming; to at least indirectly choose where and when?"

She stared at him, throat dry, unsure of what exactly to say. Red eyes silently, pleadingly held brown, and she saw then, with sudden and perfect clarity, that he was empty.

"So, Savita," he said, straightening to his full, though hardly impressive height. "I'm going to let you go. And you're going to kill me."

No sooner had the words left his mouth, she felt a sort of tingle in the air around her. An almost imperceptible tension released, like a slingshot that had been stretched and stretched and held at the breaking point, only to be eased back into its starting position, bypassing the snap of rubber and sting of a waiting projectile. The spell was gone. Still eyeing him cautiously, she bent to pick up the long neglected shotgun from the floor at her feet.

She straightened quickly, fingers curling around the sleek wood and metal as the vampire's eyes bored into her. Dark circles hung like craters under his dead eyes and a single ivory fang chewed at his lip almost impatiently. She squared her shoulders, drew the gun securely across her middle, squeezing until she felt her nails bite into the skin of her palm.

"No," she said.

Silence.

"Wh-what?"

"I said no."

"But you–" he sputtered, tiny eyes going wide. "I thought you–"

"As you said earlier," she interrupted calmly. "My mission is one of 'righteous vengeance'. This life you have, this life you're living now, is causing you more pain than I could ever hope to."

"But your parents!" the vampire choked. "You were…going to avenge them or…"

"Yes," she cut in again. "Thank you. This is vengeance enough."

She took a step backward as the vampire gaped at her, fingers trembling, clawing at the air by his sides.

"Enjoy your eternity of misery, Conrad."

"NO!"

His shriek shattered the air around her, reverberating in her head, rattling her to the bone.

"YOU'RE NOT…GETTING AWAY THAT EASY…"

She stumbled mid step, very nearly losing her footing and toppling backwards. The pale curves of his fingers were shifting, shedding down to thin, needle-like points. His teeth were bared, revealing an animal maw that she was certain had not been there moments before, flesh sizzled away as his face turned sharp and skull-like in the darkness. He stared her down with predator's eyes and lunged forward, claws extended.

_BANG._

Almost before she could register what had happened Conrad had crumpled to the floor. Her shotgun had swung up, perpendicular to her chest and was now smoking gently in the deathly silence. Distantly she heard it clatter back to the ground. Her fingers clenched and unclenched at her sides, fighting off the trembling numbness that threatened to overtake them.

Almost mechanically, she moved forward, towards the unmoving heap on the floor. Upon drawing closer, the dark outline of a bullet wound shimmered from just over his heart, stolen blood dripping into the carpet. His eyes were still open as she stood over him, his lips twitching, wisps of humanity clinging to his face as a single inky drop oozed from his mouth. Their eyes met a final time; the hunter and the hunted, neither quite knowing which title belonged to them.

"Thank you," he murmured, ghost of a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

And then he was gone. Gone with both a bang and a whimper.

She stepped back, eyeing her work impassively. This could have gone more smoothly.

As she turned her back on the bloodied heap on the floor, striding towards the boarded up window across the room, her mind wandered back to the beginning of their conversation, what felt like hours ago.

_I'm not going to kill you. I'll let you go. I promise._

What would have happened if she hadn't shot him? Would he have even been able to approach her? He had made a promise after all…

Throwing back the curtains and setting quickly to work prying off the plywood stacked neatly against the glass, she decided she was glad she had not taken the chance to find out.

Finally tugging a board loose, the curled her fingers around the edge, braced a foot against the wall, and threw her weight backwards.

Sunlight spilled into the room for what was probably the first time in decades as the bent plank toppled to the floor. She made quick work of the remaining boards until light filled the room, dust motes dancing in the afternoon warmth that felt so out of place in this little room, choked with loneliness and death. She watched as the vampire's body, little by little at first, then all at once, crumbled to ashes. Tugging the window open, she stood aside as a light breeze swept into the room, pulling tendrils and whorls of Conrad's ashes into the air, spilling out of the open window like water.

Just one of the many reasons she preferred working by day: easy cleanup.

Surveying the room quickly, she detected no traces of her presence that might be picked up upon by any authorities that might come knocking. The small bloodstain on the floor was unfortunate, but there was nothing to be done about it now. At least there would be no body to find.

Gun over her shoulder, she strode from the room, snatching up her bag and swinging that over her shoulder too as she left. Her body ached. This job was making her tired. So very tired….

Clicking the safety on and stuffing her gun indifferently into the open bag at her side, she staggered down the shadowy hall, faint smell of ash in her nose as she finally, _finally_ reached the door.

Throwing a final glance around the apartment, dark and haunted, she suppressed a shudder. She had killed vampires before. She had hunted ghosts and ghouls and dozens of hundreds of other things that went bump in the night since she was just a teenager and had always come out on top.

But this time, for some reason, she didn't quite feel like she'd won.

Shaking her head, she quickly stepped out into the brightly lit hallway and shut the door behind her with a snap, sealing the sarcophagus once and for all.


End file.
